Today I went to observe the student teacher I have been supervising. As he practices and hones his skills, he has been feeling a bit frustrated because he does not enjoy certain topics in the school curriculum. This week, the curriculum calls for a comprehensive review of the alphabet and numbers. My student teacher needed some ideas on how to make this topic engaging to students, which he found especially daunting since these topics are a review for the class and because it’s the week before Spring Break.
Anyone who has ever been obligated to teach according to a traditional curriculum knows that it can be difficult to make certain topics interesting. My suggestion to my student teacher was to approach these topics from a cultural perspective, which might make lessons more engaging. Below I have created a list of topics you might be obligated to teach that I believe can be made more interesting by leading with culture. I’ve done my best to make these as low prep as possible and have tried to include comprehensible input components to each lesson.
Teaching the Alphabet
If you teach a language that uses an alphabet as opposed to characters, an activity where you combine spelling with an exploration of notable people or places from your target culture(s) could make this topic a lot more engaging.
To prepare:
- Create a list of notable people and/or places (Spanish teachers, think about all those long words like Popocatépetl that come from indigenous languages that you can use here! French teachers, geographical terms like names of cities and regions would be good choices here)
- Create a slideshow with the correct spelling of the person/place on one slide followed by a picture of said person/place on the next slide.
- Spell out each word in the target language and have students write down the word letter by letter.
- Show the slide with the correct spelling so student can check their spelling.
- Show the picture of the person/place and describe it using Picture Talk techniques.
Teaching Numbers
There are lots of ways to reinforce numbers. Here are a few low prep possibilities:
- Calendar Talk is a great way to reinforce numbers as you discuss the day, the weather, student birthdays, and holidays in the target language (asking students to predict the temperature is a good way to reinforce those larger numbers)
- Prepare a slide with a table of the size or population of cities/countries where your target language is spoken and lead a conversation where you talk about which area is the biggest/smallest or the best way to travel between areas based on distance between two places. Calculate distance in both miles and kilometers.
- Show an advertisement with prices in foreign currency and use the target language to convert the amount into US dollars (or the currency of the country you live in).
- Vote on pretty much anything (What is your favorite sport/type of music/leisure activity) in class and discuss how many students or what percentage of students liked what.
Teaching Time
- Find a movie schedule in your target culture and talk about which movies from the US are the most popular and times those movies are being shown.
- Compare and contrast a typical class schedule at your school with a typical class schedule at a school in your target culture(s).
- Compare time differences in different areas where your target language is spoken.
ln closing, let me end by saying that these ideas mainly touch on what is referred to as “surface culture,” as presented in the image below. Think of surface culture as products and practices of the speakers of your target language.
Touching on topics that are referred to as “deep culture,” or perspectives about the target culture’s product and practices, require a different and more deliberate approach. Teachers who are interested in exploring how to teach “deep culture” should check out Michael Byram‘s book, Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence.
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